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Glasgow Live
Glasgow Live
National
David McLean

How Glasgow has changed since the Google car first came to town

Back in 2008, the now famous Google Street View cars ventured into Scotland's largest city for the very first time and they've been coming back almost every year since to update their 360 degree visuals.

Now using Google's own time slider function, we are able to view each layer in succession, enabling us to very easily track the changes in any given Glasgow street for every year that the Google car came to town.

The result is a virtual field trip through time, showing us lost city landmarks, long-vanished shops and even bus colour schemes - we just wish we were able to peer back even further.

READ MORE: Glasgow then and now as nostalgic video shows how city has changed over time

But don't just take it from us, have a look for yourself and compare the changes between then and now.

West Nile Street

It's incredible to see how much this view of West Nile Street has changed since the Google car first visited in June 2008. Legendary Glasgow iron mongers Crockett's vacated the site years ago, with the unit now a post office, while the aptly-named Iron Horse pub on the opposite side of the road is permanently closed.

Further up the street, we have lost businesses such as Haddows off-licence, while just out of shot on the left, the Blue Lagoon is also gone. Even the 1960s tower block St Andrew's House has been completely reclad and looks totally different.

Click here to see how this view looks today.

Queen Street Station

The brutalist frontage of Queen Street Station was in need of a facelift when Google first came to town and it finally got it in 2018 as part of a £120 million refurbishment and expansion project.

Sure, some might compare it to Maryhill Tesco, but for us it's definitely an improvement. Click here to see the view today.

London Road (Celtic Park)

In May 2009, the Google car passed along London Road and Celtic Park and the differences between then and now are stark. Changes were already afoot in the area as Glasgow prepared to host the 2014 Commonwealth Games.

The Emirates Arena and Sir Chris Hoy velodrome would be built on a vacant plot of land opposite the Celtic stadium where once there had been housing, while the London Road School, which closed in 2004, was finally demolished.

Here's the view today.

Gallowgate

In these images of the Gallowgate, taken in July 2008 by the Google team, we can see the line of shops that once occupied the south side of the street as it approaches Glasgow Cross.

Those shops are all long gone, along with the legendary outdoor market, Schipka Pass, with the Barrowlands Park adding a welcome bit of greenery to this part of town, as we can see here.

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St Enoch Square

When it was first built in the 1980s, the St Enoch Centre was criticised for resembling a giant greenhouse. The Google car caught a glimpse of the centre from Argyle Street in June of 2008, and few us of back then could have predicted how drastically the scene was about to be altered.

The frontage of the centre, as seen from Argyle Street and St Enoch Square, is almost unrecognisable as we can see in this more up-to-date view here.

Scottish Event Campus

There's one very notable absentee from this view of the Scottish Event Campus taken back in the late 2000s. Completed in 2013, the Hydro is one of the city's best multi-purpose event venues and has been a welcome addition to the area around Finnieston Quay.

Here's the same view today.

The Gorbals

It's actually nuts just how much the Gorbals has changed since the Google car first drove through. The Gorbals has witnessed a fresh era of regeneration over the past couple of decades, with the multi-storey flats of the 1960s all but eradicated from the district.

In this 2008 view, we can see the Norfolk Court flats dominating the scene. The tower blocks were demolished in 2016, with new housing rising on the site. Here's a more recent view.

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